my eating disorder

When I first started blogging, my stepdad gave me some advice. He said to be wise about what I put out there on the internet. At the time I struggled with depression and anxiety and I wanted so badly to write about it -- with the hopes that my struggles could benefit others. But he did have a good point - once you've gotten through it, write about it. I think this can go both ways. Either way, though, I am finally ready to write this post.

This post, that I have written literally hundreds of times the past three years. It has haunted my drafts. No matter how many times I tried to write it, to tell what I'm trying to tell you, it seemed like I couldn't find the right words. I don't know if there are any right words. But I am determined to put them onto paper.

My writing teacher, Mr. M, told me "to write is to not avert the eyes." Words expose darkness, truth exposes lies. I want to bring light to what I have faced in my life, even though it wasn't something particularly beautiful or magical or wonderful. Instead, it was real. It was hard, teeth and bone, whispers and sin, tears and blood. It was a struggle for freedom, my own, that almost cost me this precious life I have.

Late in the summer of my seventeenth year of living, I developed an eating disorder. I can remember the day; the moment where I changed. It was a beautiful day, and the light was quickly fading. Soon lightning bugs would spark and arise from the grass, and the stars would bloom in the black sky.

I remember looking at a picture that had just been taken of me, after someone had called me "not skinny" and, for the first time ever in my life, I was disgusted with what I saw.

I could not live like that. I was repulsed. I was determined, from that moment, that I was going to change. I had to. 

It actually started out innocently. I wanted to lose weight. After some googling, I got a lot of tips such as "living a healthy lifestyle," "yoga," "vegan," and "counting calories." So I became a vegetarian, began twisting my body in various yoga positions, and started, for the first time, counting every morsel of food I put in my body.

At first, mind you, I wasn't trying to starve myself. I was just trying to limit myself. And it worked. I lost five pounds in about two weeks, and people told me "you look so good." It was nice and I felt stronger, lighter, and more healthy than I ever had. I also felt like I was in control and that I was doing something right for once.

I decided on a goal weight. I never thought I would get to it, but I thought, why not?
But then I started basketball. I am not blaming basketball, mind you. But, at this point, I did not know or understand the concept of net calories. I ate X amount of calories a day, but I did not know that I burned calories at basketball practice every day. Add in a small amount of calories X - 3 hours of intense cardio and you get Gabbie losing fifteen pounds in one month.

By Thanksgiving, I was obsessed with being skinny. I wasn't underweight yet, but my health was affected. By Christmas I met my first weight goal, and for the first time I had a thigh gap.
By this time, of course, my parents had realized that something was very wrong with me. But I lied through my teeth. My weight was everything to me, and I would go to great lengths in order to have control. I hid weights in my jeans when I went to the doctor. I worse as many layers as possible to school. I snuck out my window at night and ran for miles. I hid food; I fed it to my brother and sister.

I lost my senior year of high school. I don't remember much of it. I was starving. Luckily, I had parents who applied to colleges for me, who sent me around the country for interviews.  I was able to get into college, even though my only goal in life was to lose weight. College seemed like a joke, as did my parent's concerns for my health.

That summer I went to a camp to work. Again, I underestimated my calorie intake, and by the end of the camp - for the first time since I was 11, probably - I weighed in the double digits.

I cannot describe that feeling. It was one of complete joy, utter terror, and success. I had done it. I had DONE IT. LOOK AT ME (BUT DON'T) because I had done it. And I had to stay that way.

My freshman year of college was a battle to maintain that weight. My hair fell out in clumps that year. My heart was erratic and my immune system was crap. I was tired, all the time, and cold, always. For the first time I realized I had a problem. Because I couldn't stay in two digits. It was so hard. And the fact that I couldn't was driving me into a downward spiral. So I started therapy, which was hard, and finally admitted I had lost control to anorexia.

For me, anorexia wasn't about being pretty. It was about being skinny, yes. But I didn't want anyone to know it or see me. I hid it. For me my eating disorder was a coping mechanism, a way for me to control a life that had felt out of control. I was a scared, starving little girl. I lost hope; I believed that I would never not have an eating disorder.

My desire to control food stole everything from me - my ability to be around others, to love others, to write, to do anything besides burn and consume calories. My obsession was my world, but it wasn't my identity. Because my identity, even though I was chasing, falling, dying to lose weight, my identity as a Christian was a daughter of Christ.
And he was my hope.

In the beginning of counseling, I would beg for steps that I could do to get rid of my eating disorder. I learned the hard way that I couldn't heal myself. I could, however, do things - hard things, like counseling, and talking, and disciplining myself - to put myself in a place to receive grace. I could bring others into my life to help me. I could seek God. I found resources: counseling, Eating Disorders Anonymous, and medical help.

Recovery seemed like a joke, a dream. It made me angry and sad and mad to think of it. I was sure it would never happen, but somehow it did.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done.

It happened so slowly. So slowly. It took years. It happened miraculously. It went from something I thought I was impossible - from something I DID NOT WANT - to something that was happening grudgingly, to something that I somehow wasn't afraid of anymore. Somehow it became something I wanted, and something that I started to realize was freedom.

This past year - specifically the past 6 months - I have gained so much freedom. I no longer consider myself to be anorexic or to have an eating disorder. Food is still hard. It may always be, but it won't be the kind of hard that distracts me from living, from life. I am not going to let it steal from me anymore.

There is hope.

In October of this year I started writing poetry. Poetry about my eating disorder, about my sadness and anxiety, about life and Jesus, hope and despair. And this April I finished it. In this story, a book I have decided to call Heartbeat Sound, I gain so much life and freedom. I receive grace overflowing. I learn and fall in love and nourish parts of me that were starved for so long.

I am far from finished, from over, from anything, but I want to share this with you. Because there is hope. There is so much hope. It's a hard battle, but every fight is worth it. And I firmly believe that we all deserve freedom. And that we can all share in the grace and freedom given to us by Christ.


The title of this post was going to be "My Story." But as I watched the curser blink on my computer screen, blogger patiently waiting for me to enter my title, I couldn't type it. Because "My Story" seems to encompassing. It sounds like it's my entry, my whole story. All of it. And while my eating disorder consumed so much of my life, so many precious years I will never get back, it is only a part of my story. One of my conflicts, my foils. It's a part of my history and it encourages my present. It reminds me constantly of what I was, and what I can never, ever allow myself to be again. Call it my motivation or another literary term, but to me my eating disorder was one of the most important things I have had in my life so far. It has been used and will continue to be used in me and my life for all of my life. But it does not define. And it will not exist the way it did ever again. So I continue onward into my life having finally put to words the part of my story that held me in darkness for so long.

And it feels like I've gained a bit more of the freedom that has been waiting for me all along.